3 Billion Rials: The Cost of a Baby in Iran's Digital Market

Iranian law prohibits the sale of children, yet a digital marketplace has emerged where infants are traded for sums measured in billions of rials. This underground trade operates primarily through Telegram channels, where brokers use the language of charity and adoption to facilitate transactions.

According to a review of these channels and interviews with insiders, the standard price for a newborn is 3 billion rials, approximately $1,100. This fee typically covers medical services, including ultrasound scans, and administrative documents such as birth certificates and national IDs. Payment is usually due after the baby is handed over to the new family.

One Telegram administrator, who identifies herself as "The Doctor," manages a channel that raises funds for vulnerable women. She posts appeals for pregnant women facing financial hardship, which often evolve into offers to sell the resulting children. In one recent case, a woman in her eighth month was offered for 1.5 billion rials, or about $550, plus hospital costs. The administrator stated that buyers can select the sex of infants under ten days old and may bring their own doctors to examine the child.

The process begins with prospective buyers submitting identity documents to open a file, a step that costs 200 million rials, or roughly $75. The administrator claims that birth certificates and medical records can be arranged to list the buyers as the parents, ensuring the transaction remains confidential. She described the 3 billion rial sum as a gift that covers legal steps and supports the birth family, though her account of the babies' origins shifted during interviews from abandoned newborns to children of impoverished families.

A maternity ward nurse who brokered a transfer to a family in the United States in 2021 detailed how records can be manipulated. In that case, the birth mother agreed to hand over her fifth child for 700 million rials, valued at about $2,560 in 2021. The ultrasound and test records were registered under the adoptive mother's name, and the infant was discharged from the hospital using that identity. The two women never met, and the baby was taken abroad about a month after birth. The nurse noted that some families use makeup and staged photos to simulate pregnancy.

Another broker, referred to as "Miss Doctor," advertised a three-day-old girl and a seven-day-old boy. She stated that she welcomes placements with Iranians living abroad but requires a contact inside Iran to handle paperwork. Opening a file with her costs 100 million rials, or about $37, with an additional 300 million rials, or $110, for twins. She said the infants come from unwanted pregnancies in families without the means to raise them.

A state hospital nurse reported that her facility transfers at least two newborns a month to the State Welfare Organization, known as Behzisti, often because of maternal drug addiction or family poverty. Iranian authorities have acknowledged the problem in the past. In January 2022, a senior Behzisti official said baby sales were rising, and in February 2022, the head of Tehran's cyberpolice announced the arrest of a group that had listed babies online for 1.2 billion rials.

More than four years after those arrests, similar offers continue to circulate on Telegram. The brokers maintain that they are helping babies find homes, while the nurses and activists they consult describe a system where poverty and legal gaps drive the trade.